FEATURE:
The Wind Is Whistling…
An Aerial View: Kate Bush’s King of the Mountain at Eighteen
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PERHAPS one of the most important …
Kate Bush songs, this was a massive return for her. Prior to 2005, there had been some interviews and public appearances. 1993 was when The Red Shoes came out. There was not this massive retreat and reclusive period for her like many in the media make out. Rather than recording much new music, she was spending time away from the spotlight. Giving birth to Bertie (her son) in 1998, it was not like Kate Bush was doing nothing! Even so, by the time the 1990s ended, not that many people were holding hope a new Bush album would come out. Halfway through the new decade - 24th October, 2005 to be precise -, the first new Kate Bush single since 1994 (And So Is Love) arrived. There had been rumblings and rumours of a new album for years before, though this was the first official track to be released from her one and only double album, Aerial. Reaching number four in the U.K., King of the Mountain was a huge comeback. I don’t particularly like the word ‘comeback’, as it suggest someone has gone away or was presumed extinct. Instead, this was Kate Bush, in her forties now, bringing is this phenomenal single. King of the Mountain is the last video to feature Kate Bush fully. The music video was first aired on Channel 4 on 15th October, 2005. Directed by the late Jimmy Murakami, Bush was nervous that she didn’t look good. Being reassured that she looked fabulous, I can imagine it was a big deal putting herself on camera after quite a few years down the line.
Even though she did a 2014 residency and there were press photos post-2005, her videos after King of the Mountain would not feature her. I do hope that if we get another single, at least we see Kate Bush for a bit. Eighteen years ago, this was this sense of wondering and rumour. It was an amazing day on 24th October, 2005 when King of the Mountain was released and Kate Bush was with us again. In terms of the song, there are allusions to Elvis Pressley (the King of Rock & Roll), Citizen Kane, and Kate Bush’s life to a degree (those thinking she was living on a mountain or strange place and was hidden in the wilderness). One of the other great things the release of King of the Mountain afforded was new interviews. Bush didn’t give as many as she did for, say, 2011’s 50 Words for Snow, but there were some long and deep interviews where we got an insight into Aerial. Speaking with BBC Front Row’s John Wilson, her one and only single from Aerial was discussed:
“John Wilson: Where does it start? For instance, ‘King of the Mountain’, let's look at that as an example, do you start with the lyric, an idea, an image in your head, or even a chord progression?
Kate: It was just a kind of chord progression that I had, and, em, I just put this vocal down which was extremely throwaway, which is why it's so surprising that I ended up keeping most of it as the master vocal.
John Wilson: So that's almost, that’s the demo vocal?
Kate: Yeah it is, and I tried a few times to re-create it and I couldn't get the same feeling.
[The first few lines of "King of the Mountain" are played]
John Wilson: What’s interesting about that vocal, the delivery of the words, is the way you almost mumble them... I mean, in the past your diction has been so clear on record...
[Kate laughs]
John Wilson: ... and it sounds almost like you're masking the words... there’s a... a sort of, em...you slurred words, and, it's almost like you're making them up as you go along, but, which many people when they talk about writing songs, they say they just put the words in there and they come back to them later. You weren't doing that, but it's...
Kate: No, in fact it was meant to be my impersonation of Elvis Presley.
[both laugh]
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 2005/PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Leighton
John Wilson: Oh, that's the drawl is it?
Kate: Yeah, yeah...
[The ‘Why does a multi-millionaire’ line of "King of the Mountain" is played]
Kate: In fact, I heard this fantastic review on Front Row a few weeks ago with some guy who was saying he'd heard the single. He was saying [imitates geezer] "It's only 2 chords!" and then they were discussing it more and he was saying how "It's about Elvis Presley!". And it sounded really surprised I should have written a song about Elvis Presley. Which I love! I love the idea of doing something that isn't expected.
[The "..in the snow with rosebud" line of "King of the Mountain" is played]
John Wilson: And there's a sense of isolation, of remoteness, and Elvis is the key image... there's also a reference to Citizen Kane, isn't there?
Kate: Yes
John Wilson: Randolph Hearst... and about fame as well, I guess and people wanting to get at you. Was there a sense of autobiography in that song as well?
Kate: Well, I was very much writing about Elvis, because I think he's one of those people who...I mean that kind of fame that he must've been living with, must've been unbearable...I can't imagine what it must be like. I don't think human beings are really built to withstand that kind of fame.
John Wilson: But you had that, I mean you had that incredibly quick...
Kate: No no...
John Wilson: ...not to the extent he had obviously, but you had overnight fame. You must have identified, to an extent, with Elvis' situation about people clawing at you, wanting a part of you...
Kate: Well I suppose...yeah, I suppose there's an element of that. I think, em...the process is hard enough without taking on... em, other people's baggage as well.
John Wilson: You've always been a very private person though, haven't you? I mean even after you started out you did very few gigs and you did start doing fewer and fewer interviews... and yet the songs always been, on the first few albums at least, incredibly personal, or they seemed like they were personal...seemed like they were autobiographical, incredibly candid, and people get a sense of the sort of person you were. Have you stepped back, do you think, in this album? I mean, It's a very elemental album, isn't it? About sea, sky, wind, rain?
Kate: Yes. Well, yes, I am a private person but I don't think I'm obsessively so. It's more that I choose to try and have as normal a life as possible. And I don't like to live in a glare of publicity. A long time ago, when I kind of finished making my second record, I realized that it was all the wrong way round. I was spending all my time doing interviews, television, press... suddenly this was what my life had become. And my initial drive had never to be famous, it had been to make a record. So I turned it all around, so that my time was being spent writing, and then doing a little piece of promotion at the end. And to me, that was the way that the balance worked best because, the creative process is something that I find very time consuming, and you have to have a lot of focus, and it comes from a quiet place. So this is what I'm trying to keep that balance of, which people seem to find... very weird and strange, but to me it's completely...you know, it's common sense, surely.
John Wilson: What must make it even stranger is... that the world has changed, the music world, the music industry, has changed completely, since that last record. I bought "The Red Shoes" on vinyl, and when I bought that record, there was no such thing as an MP3 [ed: Yes, there was], the Internet hadn't been invented [ed: Yes, it had], now file sharing, music is downloaded... music is borrowed, almost, from the ether, and then sent back into space... does it feel like a very different world that you've re-entered?
[Kate laughs]
Kate: Well, you know, I still been a part of the world, it's just that I've not been...
John Wilson: I meant the music world, and the industry, and that sort of...
Kate: Well yeah, but I think the whole world is changed, very much so, very quickly, in the last ten years, but particularly the last five years. I mean, I remember when I was a little girl, if you saw people walking around on the street, laughing and talking to themselves, you thought they were mad. But now it just means they're on their mobile phone. [interviewer laughs] And you know, I think it would be a shame, amongst all this technology for us to lose our sense of humanity. And music is suffering greatly from the overuse of computers, and taking away the human element... which... art is about human expression. And I think machines and technology should be used by people, not... you shouldn't be a slave to them.
John Wilson: Does it worry you the way that music is delivered now, increasingly, down a wire?
Kate: It's not that delivering down the wire. I think the sound quality is something that...is a shame that that's deteriorating, really, but... it was a very conscious decision, with this record, that I didn't write through a computer. A lot of my friends write on computers so they, every time they hit a chorus in the structure of the song, you just have a repeat of the same chorus. Now for me that's not art because it should be something that is evolving, and developing as you move through song, and changing... not just the repetition of the same moments because... I think that what's so exciting about music is it is something that unfolds through the process of time, that's what music is, it's something that... if people get it right then you'll be whipped up into a trance frenzy or a state of prayer. Music is something very special and very emotive, and it's become very disposable.
[The end of "King of the Mountain" is played]
John Wilson: So you come up with a chord progression, as you say, with King of the Mountain, you get an idea of Elvis in your head and that's a sort of thematic idea...you work at home, of course though, don't you, you have the home studio, so...
Kate: Yes.
John Wilson: ...you're able to get everything down just as quickly as possible.
Kate: I think what's quite strange is that... a lot of the writing process is really quick. I do that very quickly! But then the arrangement of the songs can be incredibly drawn out, and long-winded and so frustrating.
John Wilson: Is that because you're our perfectionist in the studio?
Kate: I'm very opinionated. I'm horrible to work with, I'm so fussy and picky and... I think what's good is that I know what I want. And I think, actually that's the most important thing.
John Wilson: You know what you want in your head...
Kate: Yes”.
King of the Mountain came to public attention on 21st September, 2005. I sort of feel, as King of the Mountain was the first song written for Aerial and started life in the 1990s, there was this reaction and consideration of maybe how Bush was perceived by the media. Perhaps feeling she needed to hide away. That said, King of the Mountain features some of Bush’s most intriguing lyrics. She has always been a gifted lyricist. I love the scenes and possibilities she summons up from the start: “Could you see the aisles of women?/Could you see them screaming and weeping?/Could you see the storm rising?/Could you see the guy who was driving?/Could you climb higher and higher?/Could you climb right over the top?/Why does a multi-millionaire/Fill up his home with priceless junk?/The wind is whistling/The wind is whistling/Through the house”. The last verse is the one, I guess, that sort of confirms who is at the heart of this song: “Elvis are you out there somewhere/Looking like a happy man?/In the snow with Rosebud/And king of the mountain”. Released in October 2005, I wanted to look ahead at the eighteenth anniversary of one of Kate Bush’s best singles. I think it is her most important. Nobody quite new whether there would be new music from her in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Vastly different to what we heard on The Red Shoes, Bush gave us the first taste of a majestic double album. I will write about closer to its anniversary in November. Twelve years on from The Red Shoes, we were overjoyed new Kate Bush music was out! We are almost in the same position now. 50 Words for Snow turns twelve in November. Its single, Wild Man, was released on 11th October, 2011. I guess we will surpass the gap between The Red Shoes coming out in November 1993 and Aerial in November 2005. I know, if Kate Bush does release another single soon, that it will be met with…
ELATION and enormous appreciation.